BAHONSENG

What is a sonnet? The word sonnet has been derived from the Italian word sonetto which means a short song or lyric. It is a short poem having 14 lines. The credit for creating this poetic form goes to the Italian poet Petrarch who wrote a large number of love sonnets. Types of Sonnets Broadly speaking, there are two types of sonnets – the Petrarchan sonnet also known as the classical sonnet and the Shakespearean sonnet. The Petrarchan or classical sonnet is named after the Italian poet Petrarch who wrote a large number of sonnets addressed to the already married lady, Laura, with whom he had fallen in love. It is divided into two stanzas. The first stanza consists of eight lines and is known as the octave and the second stanza consists of six lines and is known as the sestet. The rhyme scheme of the octave is abbaabba  and that of the sestet is cdecde or sometimes cdccdc. The octave offers the reader the subject of the sonnet which is generally an argument, observ...

Lycidas (A Pastoral Elegy by John Milton) Summary Lycidas is a pastoral elegy written by Milton to mourn the death of his friend Edward King who had died while travelling from Chester to Ireland in a ship which sank in the sea. The poem can be divided into six identifiable sections. The first section serves as a prologue to the poem. It covers the first twenty four lines of the poem.  These  lines tell us why Milton wrote this poem at a time when his poetical powers had not yet fully  developed  although he had decided not to write anything before he was fully mature as a poet. It was the  sad and  untimely death of Edward King, (whom he calls Lycidas in the poem), that had compelled him to  pen this  elegy. He expresses in it the grief that he felt at the death of a friend. King had been his friend  and  classmate at Cambridge. Besides, he was a promising poet and Puritan priest. His death therefore  ...

Wuthering Heights Brief SUMMARY   of the Novel In the late winter months of 1801, a man named Lockwood rents a manor house called Thrushcross Grange in the isolated moor country of England. Here, he meets his dour landlord, Heathcliff, a wealthy man who lives in the ancient manor of Wuthering Heights, four miles away from the Grange. In this wild, stormy countryside, Lockwood asks his housekeeper, Nelly Dean, to tell him the story of Heathcliff and the strange denizens of Wuthering Heights. Nelly consents, and Lockwood writes down his recollections of her tale in his diary; these written recollections form the main part of  Wuthering Heights . Nelly remembers her childhood. As a young girl, she works as a servant at Wuthering Heights for the owner of the manor, Mr. Earnshaw, and his family. One day, Mr. Earnshaw goes to Liverpool and returns home with an orphan boy whom he will raise with his own children. At first, the Earnshaw children—a boy named Hindley and...

Summary of the Play The Rivals The rivals has a multiple plot. The main plot is the love affair of Miss Lydia Languish and Captain Jack Absolute. Then there is a sub-plot which deals with the love affair of Miss Julia Mellville and Faulkland. There is another sub-plot dealing with Mrs. Malaprop’s passion for the Irish baronet, Sir Lucius O’Trigger. Nor can we forget Sir Anthony Absolute (Capt. Absolute’s father) and Bob Acres, a country squire, both of whom play important roles in the play. Lydia – Absolute Affair Lydia’s romantic inclinations Miss Lydia Languish is the niece of a widowed lady, Mrs. Malaprop, who is also her guardian. Lydia is a rich heiress. But if she marries any man not approved by her aunt-cum-guardian, Mrs. Malaprop, she will lose her fortune. However, Lydia is not a money minded girl. She would marry a poor man and annoy her aunt rather than marry a rich man with the approval of her aunt. At the same time, Lydia is a girl of romantic notions living...